Shiksa, the Americanized version of the Yiddish shikse, derives from the Hebrew shekketz, meaning “abomination of” and referring in the Torah to idolatry and unclean food.

The Talmud cautions, “Let him not marry the daughter of an unlearned and nonobservant man, for they are an abomination [shekketz] and their wives a creeping thing.” Shikse’s more modern roots are as the female spin-off of the Yiddish sheygets, a non-Jewish male whose plural schotsim is close in sound to the Hebrew shikkutzim—“abominations.”

Back in Eastern Europe, as Dovid Katz, a professor of Yiddish at Vilnius University, explains, shikse’s primary use was as a slang word among Jewish men for “a sexually attractive, young, non-Jewish female.” It was strictly an inter-Jewish word, which, like other Jewish words for Gentiles, was not shouted at cute Polish girls passing by.

Its second, more serious use, as Katz notes, was “meant religiously—someone married a shikse.” Michael Wex, author of Born to Kvetch, brands shikse as an early Yiddish weapon in the “unending war against mixed dating. The idea is that these are attractive people, so if you call them slimy, it kind of takes some the attraction out of it.”

Jewish mothers tried to further spoil the allure by reminding their sons that “a yonge shikse vert an alte goye.” In other words, as Wex explains, the young shikse turns into an old, Gentile hag. And finally, parents used the word as a mild rebuke to mischievous girls.

“In traditional Jewish folklore, a parent must never scold a child with something that she or he might become. So traditionally, it is okay, in anger, to call a child a sheygets or a shikse because it can never become that,” says Katz.

The folks at Miriam-Webster’s Dictionary date the appearance in America of shiksa—with an “a” as opposed to an “e” at the end—to 1872, and the word received its spot in the dictionary in 1961. Though both sheygets and shikse were popularly used in Eastern Europe, sheygets is rarely heard today in the United States. One explanation for this is that until recently, it was predominantly Jewish men who intermarried and, given Judaism’s matrilineal descent, a shiksa posed a greater assimilationist threat than did a sheygets.

Diane Wolf, a professor of sociology at University of California at Davis, believes that the real reason for the word’s persistence is “just general misogyny and sexism that allows terms that are derogatory towards women to be perpetuated much more so than terms that are derogatory towards men.” For a Jewish parallel, Wolf points to numerous references to JAPs—Jewish American Princesses—and the glaring absence of Jewish American Princes.

Ann is possibly unaware of how vile the term really is...there are a few gaps in her education.

Likely she was yielding to the peculiar European trait of mild self-deprecation, anxious to prove how good-natured and "not racist" she truly is.

You'll notice Avraham, the interviewer, did not correct Ann on the true nature of the word "shiksa", nor did the editors of the Jewish Press see fit to blueline the reference, though they surely know what is meant by "shiksa".

It is safe to say they are satisfied to have Ann at their feet and not their throats. Right where the well-behaved little shiksa belongs.

Interviewer: What are your feelings about the disengagement from Gaza last year? Since Israel's withdrawal from the area over 500 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Jewish communities. Al Qaeda has moved into the territory abandoned by Israel. Iran is looking to establish an embassy there. Egypt has accused the Gaza terrorists as targeting them as well.

Ann: My first thought is that the Jewish people may not drive as hard a bargain as I've always been led to believe.